COIFĪ, THE CHIEF PAGAN PRIEST, MAKES THE CASE FOR CHRISTIANITY

Coifi, the pagan chief priest, makes a utilitarian argument: no one has honored the old gods as much as he has, and little benefit has he gained from it. The new religion should be followed if it is found to bring more benefits.

(5) prīmus pontificum: partitive genitive: “first of his priests”

Coifī: nominative

modo: “now”

quod certum didicī, profiteor, quia: “I confess that I have learned for a fact that…”

hūcūsque: “up to now”

(6) Nūllus: = nēmo

tuōrum: “of your subjects”

studiōsius: comparative adverb: “more studiously”

sē subdidit: “has subjected (or, devoted) himself” (> subdo)

quae agenda ... disponunt: “which they undertake either to do or to acquire”

THE SIMILE OF THE SPARROW

This section includes a famous simile, comparing human life to the flight of a sparrow through the king's hall. An Anglo-Saxon hall, believed to be that of King Edwin, was excavated at Yeavering, Northumbria, in the 1950s. A computer-generated reconstruction of the Great Hall (with a fly-through by a sparrow), created by Oxford Arch Digital for the website Past Perfect, can be seen in the media tab.

(9) Cuius: i.e., of Coifī

suāsiōnī: with tribuēns assēnsum: “assenting to the persuasive speech…”

alius optimātum rēgis: “another of the king’s best men”

Tālis ... quāle: introducing a simile. The main structure of the sentence is: Tālis vīta vidētur mihi quāle cum ūnus passerum pervolāverit domum: “this life seems to me like when a sparrow flies through the house” (see articulated text).

parvissimō spatiō serēnitātis ad mōmentum excursō:parvissimō spatiō excursō is an ablative absolute (“when the briefest space has run out”); serēnitātis either goes with spatiō (“space of peace”) or with ad mōmentum (“after a moment of peace”). In translation, it’s probably best to simplify: “after the briefest moment of peace has run out” (literally, “when the briefest space of peace has run out after a moment”)